The present invention relates to a sanitary insert unit which has a sealing ring. The invention is also concerned with a sanitary insert unit which has a flow regulator or is configured as a flow regulator. The present invention also relates to a shower fitting having a sanitary insert unit which contains a flow regulator and/or a check valve.
A sealing ring which is pushed onto a pipe piece as far as an annular flange is already previously known from FIG. 4 of U.S. Pat. No. 2,343,774 A. The pipe piece which can be inserted into the line end of a sanitary water line has an external thread, onto which a shower head which is to be fastened to the line end can be screwed. The annular flange which is provided on the pipe piece is adjoined immediately by an expanding ring which is conical on the outer circumferential side and protrudes with its tapering end region into the annular opening of the sealing ring in such a way that the sealing ring is expanded when the shower head which bears against the front edge of the line end is screwed increasingly onto the external thread of the pipe piece and the annular flange is moved with every thread turn in the direction of the shower head. Here, the sealing ring is expanded in such a way that it bears frictionally against the inner circumference of the line end and is capable of holding the shower head fixedly there.
A sanitary insert unit is already previously known from DE 20 2008 017 031 from the applicant, which sanitary insert unit is configured as a flow regulator which has a throttle body which is made from elastic material, which throttle body is arranged in the throughflow channel of a regulator housing and delimits a control gap between itself and a control profiling which is provided on an inner or outer circumferential channel wall. This control gap can be deformed in its clear throughflow cross section as a consequence of the throttle body which is deformed under the pressure of the medium which flows through, in such a way that the water volume which flows through per unit time is set to a fixed value independently of the current water pressure. The regulator housing of the previously known flow regulator bears a clamping region on the outer circumferential side, which clamping region is intended for clamping in the previously known flow regulator between two line sections which are connected to one another. Here, this clamping region is formed by the inflow-side and outflow-side end face of a sealing ring, in the ring opening of which the regulator housing is arranged. In an exemplary embodiment which is shown in FIGS. 7 and 9 of DE 20 2008 017 031, the previously known flow regulator is inserted into the outflow-side union nut of a flexible hose line, which union nut for its part is screwed to the shower connection of a hand shower. The previously known flow regulator can therefore be fixed captively in the internal threads of union nuts, either on the fitting outlet side or the hose inlet side, and combines the function of a flow regulator and of an annular seal within itself. It is a particular advantage of the previously known flow regulator that it can also be used in exchange for an originally provided sealing ring, without dimensional deviations and greater gaps occurring in this region.
The previously known installation part which consists of the flow regulator and the annular seal can, however, at any rate be accommodated securely in the union nut of a flexible hose line during storage and transport. Hand showers which can be used as kitchen or shower heads are usually marketed, however, without an associated shower hose. If, however, a shower fitting of this type is to be marketed with an annular seal which also comprises a flow regulator, there is the problem of fixing the flow regulator permanently to the hand shower handle which is always provided with an external thread.
Flow regulators which are fixed by an interference fit in the shower handle are already known; this presupposes that the inner wall of the shower handle terminates sealingly with the inserted flow regulator, with the result that no bypass is produced. Furthermore, it is required that an axial stop is formed in the shower handle, since the operating pressure causes an axial force on the flow regulator as a result of the pressure loss at the latter. This force has to be absorbed in the shower wall.
Despite the as a rule uniform ½″ threaded connection to connect the shower hose, the shower handles on the market often have different internal diameters in the shower handle, however, which are additionally of different conical configuration depending on the shower-specific production and as a rule also do not have an axial stop for a flow regulator or similar installation part.